eyes.
Steven Stark will never change, and we both know it.
‘Nah … I’m just finally admitting the truth, to myself,’ he says, and I can’t help it then. In spite of everything – the running away, the ignoring me, the butt talk – he has my attention again. I suspect he’ll always have my attention, no matter what I try to tell myself.
But for once, it’s OK.
It’s OK because Jason asks in this quiet voice what that might be, and Steven replies, ‘That there’s only ever been one girl for me.’
Before looking directly into my eyes, as though he’s never looked away.
Chapter Five
I can’t afford to read too much into his stare. But I’m unable to think of anything else either. My brain absolutely refuses, on pain of death. I threaten it with books by John Grisham and rusty forks inserted into the ear, and all to no avail. It carries on bothering me with Steven Stark’s heavy and pointed look well into the middle of the night, and beyond.
It’s four in the morning before I get any sleep, and even then it’s not the normal kind I’m used to. My head is full of weird, unsettling dreams about massive men with searchlight eyes, and really obvious metaphors. For example, in one of them I’m trying to run away from a monster that looks exactly like me, only bigger, but I can’t because the ground is made of jelly.
I don’t think I need Freud to decipher that one. But I’d be happy if he were around, because at least then I’d have someone to tell me to snap out of this – probably in a really angry German accent. No one can carry on making a mess of things when someone’s telling them not to in an angry German accent.
Unfortunately, all I’ve got is this suffocating boat and my blundering brother’s voice calling down from the deck, just as I’m nodding back off. God only knows what time it is now, though I’m guessing it’s far too early to either a) sound so cheery or b) be enthusiastic about sightseeing.
‘I’m going to buy a hat,’ he declares, as though hat buying is the most exciting enterprise in the entire world and I should really know about it, while I groan and try to bury myself under the pillows.
Of course, doing so only makes me hotter. But hotter is preferable to conscious, and I persevere. I burrow and swaddle and generally turn myself into a suffocating, half-sleeping mess, and eventually I doze. However, it’s a strange and fitful sort of thing – so I suppose it’s no surprise that I don’t know where I am or what’s going on, when I turn over and see Steven standing there. For one brief, dream-addled moment I’m sure he’s escaped from my unconsciousness, and is about to attack me with his searchlight eyes. And then some sense filters back in – though sense isn’t much better.
It suggests I must have sleepwalked into his bedroom, despite all evidence to the contrary. I’m laid down and he’s stood up; I’m still tangled in my own sheets; I can see the bar behind him. And yet I’m almost certain that’s what must have happened. Why else would he be standing so close to me while I’m half-unconscious? I can almost feel his thigh touching the back of my hand.
I must have done it. In fact, I’m so sure for a second that my face flushes. Or at least, it would have flushed if it were not already so full of heat and colour. It’s almost like a fever, I think – this fire-y feeling, pressing against the insides of my cheeks. Though I sort of know, even in this dazed state, that it isn’t just because of the sun. It isn’t even embarrassment.
It’s something else. Something about the way he’s looking at me, as I lie sprawled all over my bed. I’m only wearing a thin little vest – an item of clothing I found adequate, when there was no danger of him ever coming in for a closer look. But it now seems appallingly immodest, almost completely transparent and barely-there. The straps are like spider’s webs, and they don’t contain the
Steven Stark will never change, and we both know it.
‘Nah … I’m just finally admitting the truth, to myself,’ he says, and I can’t help it then. In spite of everything – the running away, the ignoring me, the butt talk – he has my attention again. I suspect he’ll always have my attention, no matter what I try to tell myself.
But for once, it’s OK.
It’s OK because Jason asks in this quiet voice what that might be, and Steven replies, ‘That there’s only ever been one girl for me.’
Before looking directly into my eyes, as though he’s never looked away.
Chapter Five
I can’t afford to read too much into his stare. But I’m unable to think of anything else either. My brain absolutely refuses, on pain of death. I threaten it with books by John Grisham and rusty forks inserted into the ear, and all to no avail. It carries on bothering me with Steven Stark’s heavy and pointed look well into the middle of the night, and beyond.
It’s four in the morning before I get any sleep, and even then it’s not the normal kind I’m used to. My head is full of weird, unsettling dreams about massive men with searchlight eyes, and really obvious metaphors. For example, in one of them I’m trying to run away from a monster that looks exactly like me, only bigger, but I can’t because the ground is made of jelly.
I don’t think I need Freud to decipher that one. But I’d be happy if he were around, because at least then I’d have someone to tell me to snap out of this – probably in a really angry German accent. No one can carry on making a mess of things when someone’s telling them not to in an angry German accent.
Unfortunately, all I’ve got is this suffocating boat and my blundering brother’s voice calling down from the deck, just as I’m nodding back off. God only knows what time it is now, though I’m guessing it’s far too early to either a) sound so cheery or b) be enthusiastic about sightseeing.
‘I’m going to buy a hat,’ he declares, as though hat buying is the most exciting enterprise in the entire world and I should really know about it, while I groan and try to bury myself under the pillows.
Of course, doing so only makes me hotter. But hotter is preferable to conscious, and I persevere. I burrow and swaddle and generally turn myself into a suffocating, half-sleeping mess, and eventually I doze. However, it’s a strange and fitful sort of thing – so I suppose it’s no surprise that I don’t know where I am or what’s going on, when I turn over and see Steven standing there. For one brief, dream-addled moment I’m sure he’s escaped from my unconsciousness, and is about to attack me with his searchlight eyes. And then some sense filters back in – though sense isn’t much better.
It suggests I must have sleepwalked into his bedroom, despite all evidence to the contrary. I’m laid down and he’s stood up; I’m still tangled in my own sheets; I can see the bar behind him. And yet I’m almost certain that’s what must have happened. Why else would he be standing so close to me while I’m half-unconscious? I can almost feel his thigh touching the back of my hand.
I must have done it. In fact, I’m so sure for a second that my face flushes. Or at least, it would have flushed if it were not already so full of heat and colour. It’s almost like a fever, I think – this fire-y feeling, pressing against the insides of my cheeks. Though I sort of know, even in this dazed state, that it isn’t just because of the sun. It isn’t even embarrassment.
It’s something else. Something about the way he’s looking at me, as I lie sprawled all over my bed. I’m only wearing a thin little vest – an item of clothing I found adequate, when there was no danger of him ever coming in for a closer look. But it now seems appallingly immodest, almost completely transparent and barely-there. The straps are like spider’s webs, and they don’t contain the
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